Are rollers less used these days?

[Bored All Day Everyday]

There's a lot of new weapons, rollers were the original overused beasts when the game first came out; now that's there's much more content to play with and try to master, the people with rollers want to try out things too, because not everything's a roller and they accept that they can win another way.

So, yes, rollers are being used less.

 

[SupaTim]

I tried using the carbon roller again yesterday. It is no longer a turfing weapon. I mean, maybe it never was, but you could at least get a lot of turf with it because people would either avoid you or weren't good enough to splat you. Now I spent half my time in the ink waiting for people because they would have just killed me with their superior range if I didn't. I usually got decent splats, but couldn't get more than 600ish points. Granted, the maps yesterday weren't great for rollers, but I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed.

 

[Miirisa]

I tried using the carbon roller again yesterday. It is no longer a turfing weapon. I mean, maybe it never was, but you could at least get a lot of turf with it because people would either avoid you or weren't good enough to splat you. Now I spent half my time in the ink waiting for people because they would have just killed me with their superior range if I didn't. I usually got decent splats, but couldn't get more than 600ish points. Granted, the maps yesterday weren't great for rollers, but I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed.

The carbon roller is so weak these days..such a shame it`s speed and kit is amazing

 

[Award]

So today I play a TW match where my team consisted of Carbon (me) 2 Krak-ons and a splash-o-matic. The enemy team also had one carbon. I don't think having half a lobby of rollers counts as them diminishing too much :)

I tried using the carbon roller again yesterday. It is no longer a turfing weapon. I mean, maybe it never was, but you could at least get a lot of turf with it because people would either avoid you or weren't good enough to splat you. Now I spent half my time in the ink waiting for people because they would have just killed me with their superior range if I didn't. I usually got decent splats, but couldn't get more than 600ish points. Granted, the maps yesterday weren't great for rollers, but I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed.

Carbon's really not much of a turfer. It really amazed me when I got into it, but I'm used to it now. If I need to turf bigtime, I go aero/sploosh. Carbon's not BAD at turfing, but it's not great either. It's definitely a killer that can also claim key zones.
One thing to keep in mind though is turf points are meaningless. You get points for turfing, losing, turfing, losing, over and over in broad ground. With carbon you're likely to ink KEY territory/choikepoints, and keep them held. In TW that's a more strategic turfing. In Splatzones' that's pretty much the game right there. So it doesn't cover as much lost ground as other weapons, but it's more likely to keep the ground it turfs and therefore not need to keep adding turf points buy re-inking again and again. It's very defensive, but can push chokepoints as well.

The carbon roller is so weak these days..such a shame it`s speed and kit is amazing

I don't know that any fast moving ohko weapon can be considered weak. You can't outrange what you can't hit. And you can't outgun what kills you first. It's powerful, but it shouldn't storm the front lines alone. Not many weapons allow for that. Most of those have splashwalls.

 

[Airi]

The carbon roller is so weak these days..such a shame it`s speed and kit is amazing

The Carbon Roller isn't a weak weapon. If someone thinks it is a weak weapon, it simply means that they haven't learned how to use the Carbon Roller to its full potential. And that's fine. The Carbon Roller is like every weapon in the game. It's not one that everyone can learn but it's not a weak weapon at all. :) The Carbon Roller's strength doesn't lie at face value but rather lies in how it is used. Just stacking some Swim Speed Up is enough to make the Carbon Roller an annoying menace. Add some Bomb Range to that and you become even more annoying for your opponents. :P Burst Bombs can often be a Carbon Roller's best friend. :P

Dynamos and eliters are a similar club of "hard to learn, difficult to use, but utterly dominating when used by skilled players, and completely worthless with a team stacked with them" I often see teams of 3 eliters or 2 eliters and a splatterscope (or the dreaded 4 sniper team.) I think I've won maybe 2 of those matches, and It was definitely not me who carried the victory but some ace Japanese sniper that got triple the kills I did and thankfully was on my team! I'm not a dynamo afficianado (though I'd like to get into it at some point) but I know they have the same struggles! It won't stop me from resenting good dynamos though. I still think dynamos are in need of a nerf. I know they're hard to wield but that 50 degree arc of ohko across the entire length of mid is just a little wrong. Why can't my eliter have a hitbox the diameter of a rapid blaster AoE while they're at it? :p It could be coincidence but I've noted on other threads that I almost see a pattern that it actually DOES filter weapons in the matchmaker, and actually seems to intentionally try to match same weapons. I've found many times that when I use weapon X, there will suddenly be many more of weapon type X in the lobby.

Interesting about carbon being popular (and unskilled) in TW. I haven't seen many unskilled carbons (and haven playing mostly TW.) I still see unskilled krak-ons/splats that try to steamroll me (and I rage so much when I actually let them succeed! :p) and I agree, dedicated inkers should love carbons because they spread ink and move so fast! (Yet carbon seems to not rate as high in total ink coverage as you'd think it would!) But I haven't seen too many carbons that just zip around and try to steamroll. I've seen some that aren't knowledgeable in avoiding snipers, but CQC they seem capable (or campy...ugh.) What I don't see too much is a ton of burst bomb use from other carbons which is surprising, though I picked up being a "burst bomb main" y vanilla eliter run ;) When I first started playing carbon I could NOT get used to using bursts so much. I was playing Carbon in Bluefin yesterday (and, yes, there was another carbon on my team, it matchmakes me with same weapons all the time!) He took the left pit, I took right. He didn't have the better score ;), but, then, my score wasn't as good as I'm used to (I usually go 5/0-7/2, this time I had 5/3 and 3/2. But I think there were two krak-on/splats on the other team (and dancing around that little quad wall in the pit with a roller with more range leads to some trades. But I was dividing my time between covering my pit and throwing bursts across to the other pit to keep invaders from going up the wall. Got a splat or two out of that! That set had at least 4 rollers in the lobby. I'm fairly skilled, one of the krak-ons was pretty skilled. the other carbon, not good but not awful, and the other splat/krak I'd say the same.

I'm just now remembering that I never did respond to you over here~ ^.^" Those matches are definitely a pain to successfully win. Mahi-Mahi is easy to win with three Dynamos because of how open its Splat Zone is. There's just enough room for us to hide and wait for you to come back but there's barely anywhere for a player to hide from our strike. I think I spent most of that match hiding behind the walls and waiting for the enemy team to come back only to splat them. :P On most other courses though, it probably would have been an easy win for the opposing team because most maps have a lot of ways to avoid Dynamos. Mahi-Mahi is both a great course for Splat Zones while also being a bit of a mess on Splat Zones as well. x) That is definitely odd the system would do that. I'm kind of curious as to why it would do that. o.o It seems like it would only frustrate players more than do any actual good. :v

I don't really mean that a lot of Carbon Rollers are unskilled. I think it's more that it becomes predictable after a while. When you have a weapon for a main, you become well acquainted with it so you can often guess what your opponent is trying to do. So it's a bit easier to put a stop to their attempt since I can have a better guess at what they're doing lol. If the field remains even leveled or in your team's control, it can be fairly easy to predict what a Carbon Roller is attempting because I know what the weapon is capable of.... It's a different story when the other team is in control though. Carbon Rollers like popping out of nowhere at everyone. x) Carbon Rollers will always remain annoying to face lol :P

 

[Miirisa]

I played some turf wars with the carbon today. I actually stacked coldblooded and damage up. Honestly I should give that weapona bigger chance because IT`S SO FUN! xD

 

[16bitdave]

I only use the roller when I am playing Rain Maker

 

[Miirisa]

I only use the roller when I am playing Rain Maker

Me too It`s really effective in that game mode

 

[SupaTim]

I played some turf wars with the carbon today. I actually stacked coldblooded and damage up. Honestly I should give that weapona bigger chance because IT`S SO FUN! xD

Yeah, I used to run ninja squid, but bomb range and damage stacking more important. Burst bombs have really become such an effective tool for short-mid range weapons.

Carbon's really not much of a turfer. It really amazed me when I got into it, but I'm used to it now. If I need to turf bigtime, I go aero/sploosh. Carbon's not BAD at turfing, but it's not great either. It's definitely a killer that can also claim key zones.
One thing to keep in mind though is turf points are meaningless. You get points for turfing, losing, turfing, losing, over and over in broad ground. With carbon you're likely to ink KEY territory/choikepoints, and keep them held. In TW that's a more strategic turfing. In Splatzones' that's pretty much the game right there. So it doesn't cover as much lost ground as other weapons, but it's more likely to keep the ground it turfs and therefore not need to keep adding turf points buy re-inking again and again. It's very defensive, but can push chokepoints as well.

I used to get a ton of turf with it. Now, I definitely use it more as you describe. Which, honestly, isn't that much fun for me. I can get a similar, if not better kill count with twice the turf inked with the L-3D. Since I almost always play TW nowadays, I probably won't be rolling much anymore. Like blasters, rollers seem more suited for ranked.

 

[Award]

I'm just now remembering that I never did respond to you over here~ ^.^" Those matches are definitely a pain to successfully win. Mahi-Mahi is easy to win with three Dynamos because of how open its Splat Zone is. There's just enough room for us to hide and wait for you to come back but there's barely anywhere for a player to hide from our strike. I think I spent most of that match hiding behind the walls and waiting for the enemy team to come back only to splat them. :p On most other courses though, it probably would have been an easy win for the opposing team because most maps have a lot of ways to avoid Dynamos. Mahi-Mahi is both a great course for Splat Zones while also being a bit of a mess on Splat Zones as well. x) That is definitely odd the system would do that. I'm kind of curious as to why it would do that. o.o It seems like it would only frustrate players more than do any actual good. :v

I don't really mean that a lot of Carbon Rollers are unskilled. I think it's more that it becomes predictable after a while. When you have a weapon for a main, you become well acquainted with it so you can often guess what your opponent is trying to do. So it's a bit easier to put a stop to their attempt since I can have a better guess at what they're doing lol. If the field remains even leveled or in your team's control, it can be fairly easy to predict what a Carbon Roller is attempting because I know what the weapon is capable of.... It's a different story when the other team is in control though. Carbon Rollers like popping out of nowhere at everyone. x) Carbon Rollers will always remain annoying to face lol :p

Mahi is a pretty weird Splat Zone with that big open area. I managed to win with a Custom Blaster in Zones there! It really is forgiving of just about any play style. Like my 3-custom-eliter round, I do often see 2-4 of the same weapon (or weapon type) in the same lobby, especially for the stranger weapons. I don't know if it's by design or if it's basically a bug with the game's attempt to match players by play style that the weirder weapons like dynamo and Custom-E will end up having playstyles mostly matching only users with the same mains. But it gets pretty annoying in some lobbies. But part of me presumes it's Nintendo doing data gathering on playstyles by matching them up together.

Most of the carbons I see don't like being predictable. As an eliter/carbon main, that's annoying. I try to snipe them, and I know they'll make it hard and I'll probably miss a few important shots. And, being a roller, I can't slow them down by inking their path. ;) One thing I have noticed with a lot of carbons though is they don't seem to make use of their burst bombs, which really cripples the weapon. I think a lot of players use the roller as an inkzooka charger, and forget how deadly the main weapon + sub can be. But one of the deadliest things to me when playing carbon is other carbons. Being ohko I get a LOT of trades when there's a carbon on the other team. It's one of those losses you just have to laugh at - it's like a showdown at sunset and both draw at the same time, every time. :D

I played some turf wars with the carbon today. I actually stacked coldblooded and damage up. Honestly I should give that weapona bigger chance because IT`S SO FUN! xD

Damage up is good if you're big into using the AoE on burst bombs. I try to keep a balance of bomb range + damage + swim speed up because I like to use the AoE and like to counter armor up, and I try to keep the parity with my vanilla eliter in terms of bomb damage. But on the carbon, dmg up only really helps the blast area of the bombs, and maybe a little of the splash on a fling, but it doesn't help the main weapon much since it's already ohko without dmg up and bombs should still be 2kho for direct hits. I don't think armor up can prevent the ohko fling.

The strength of carbon can lie either in being completely stealthy, or in being spastically, chaotically aggressive & evasive, or a mix of the two. I'm stealthy when I'm lurking in our ink, but generally I play the spastic evasive weapon - it's an exceedingly fast paced weapon that way (Sensitivity +5 for sure :D)

 

[LAX]

Well that is true .52 and tentatek are used a lot. My point is there's more variety now. Before, it was just .96 deco, e-litre, tentatek, and the blasters (not counting rapid). Now i see, sploosh, splash, carbon, splatterscopes, sloshers, heavy and zink mini splattling, splattershot pro, rapid blaster pro etc. the two you mentioned are extremely overused, but not like the way the meta was before the patch.

pre patch, a lot of people did use e-liters but most of them sucked. they only got burst bomb kills.

 

[Award]

Yeah, I used to run ninja squid, but bomb range and damage stacking more important. Burst bombs have really become such an effective tool for short-mid range weapons.

I used to get a ton of turf with it. Now, I definitely use it more as you describe. Which, honestly, isn't that much fun for me. I can get a similar, if not better kill count with twice the turf inked with the L-3D. Since I almost always play TW nowadays, I probably won't be rolling much anymore. Like blasters, rollers seem more suited for ranked.

I also like L3 (but it's the vanilla version I love) but I despise button mashing weapons (ironcially to spare my GamePad that had the stick go anyway!) and to spare my fingers the abuse. I play L3 similarly spastically as carbon and get big kill numbers leading the charge, but it kills my fingers (and my gamepad) when I try to turf with it, so I only take it out for fun now and then. Carbon's a good happy middle of similar playstyle but less straining to me and my hardware. Personally in TW, I find the "capture and hold" play of the carbon to be highly effective. I won't be on the top of the leaderboard in TW, but I'm just as important in securing the team win as in ranked. I can lock down one bottom section in Port for example with carbon as I can with eliter. Unlike eliter I can also do some hit & run raids up in the enemy base. But I won't get the big ink points because once I secure that section it STAYS secured, versus the trio of Splattershots on the other side that keep having a back & forth war that pushes up into our base, and theirs back and forth. The only new ink I get to cover up is a little bit between their ledge and the cross-wall in the middle. The rest of my team has top and bottom of the other side to keep cleaning up. TW point scoring is a little off in that way - it actually rewards failing if you push back and forth rather than holding your ground defensively.

On the other hand, NOTHING captures the bottom of Piranha like zooming by with a carbon roller!

pre patch, a lot of people did use e-liters but most of them sucked. they only got burst bomb kills.

Oh, so very true!

 

[Miirisa]

Mahi is a pretty weird Splat Zone with that big open area. I managed to win with a Custom Blaster in Zones there! It really is forgiving of just about any play style. Like my 3-custom-eliter round, I do often see 2-4 of the same weapon (or weapon type) in the same lobby, especially for the stranger weapons. I don't know if it's by design or if it's basically a bug with the game's attempt to match players by play style that the weirder weapons like dynamo and Custom-E will end up having playstyles mostly matching only users with the same mains. But it gets pretty annoying in some lobbies. But part of me presumes it's Nintendo doing data gathering on playstyles by matching them up together.

Most of the carbons I see don't like being predictable. As an eliter/carbon main, that's annoying. I try to snipe them, and I know they'll make it hard and I'll probably miss a few important shots. And, being a roller, I can't slow them down by inking their path. ;) One thing I have noticed with a lot of carbons though is they don't seem to make use of their burst bombs, which really cripples the weapon. I think a lot of players use the roller as an inkzooka charger, and forget how deadly the main weapon + sub can be. But one of the deadliest things to me when playing carbon is other carbons. Being ohko I get a LOT of trades when there's a carbon on the other team. It's one of those losses you just have to laugh at - it's like a showdown at sunset and both draw at the same time, every time. :D



Damage up is good if you're big into using the AoE on burst bombs. I try to keep a balance of bomb range + damage + swim speed up because I like to use the AoE and like to counter armor up, and I try to keep the parity with my vanilla eliter in terms of bomb damage. But on the carbon, dmg up only really helps the blast area of the bombs, and maybe a little of the splash on a fling, but it doesn't help the main weapon much since it's already ohko without dmg up and bombs should still be 2kho for direct hits. I don't think armor up can prevent the ohko fling.

The strength of carbon can lie either in being completely stealthy, or in being spastically, chaotically aggressive & evasive, or a mix of the two. I'm stealthy when I'm lurking in our ink, but generally I play the spastic evasive weapon - it's an exceedingly fast paced weapon that way (Sensitivity +5 for sure :D)

I actually use carbon in a weird way. I attack then retreat and attack again..It`s not very effective against smarter players..

 

[Award]

pre patch, a lot of people did use e-liters but most of them sucked. they only got burst bomb kills.

I actually use carbon in a weird way. I attack then retreat and attack again..It`s not very effective against smarter players..

Other than the very dishonorable "hid in a tiny ink spot and wait for someone to pass" camping, there's a few ways to attack with carbon. Burst bombs if you don't care about stealth and want to hit from range. 2 direct hits kill, so if you can be accurate, 3-5 from area damage depending on lag :p

IF you're relying on the side splash of the fling it takes generally 2 hits, so your tactic might work if you can get back again, or you can just fling again.

But with the main weapon keep in mind that carbon is a lot like eliter in that it is a one hit kill right in the center of your aim. It requires a precise strike, but if you can hone your aim with it, there won't be a need to "retreat and attack again" because there will no longer be a squid there ;)

It's sort of a melee weapon but needs good aim. I think that turns a lot of people off it. People think the point of a roller is that you don't have to aim it (which was true more or less in the beginning) but since the patches it's actually a precision aim weapon for it's best attack (but with lots of secondary attack opportunites with the sidesplash.) But it's an ohko aimed weapon that fires much faster than any other (chargers/blasters.)

The funniest moments happen when you're rolling along and someone was camping in the ink and you just kind of bounce back like you hit a wall. Usually both players just stand there for a second trying to process what just happened. :D

 

[Miirisa]

Other than the very dishonorable "hid in a tiny ink spot and wait for someone to pass" camping, there's a few ways to attack with carbon. Burst bombs if you don't care about stealth and want to hit from range. 2 direct hits kill, so if you can be accurate, 3-5 from area damage depending on lag :p

IF you're relying on the side splash of the fling it takes generally 2 hits, so your tactic might work if you can get back again, or you can just fling again.

But with the main weapon keep in mind that carbon is a lot like eliter in that it is a one hit kill right in the center of your aim. It requires a precise strike, but if you can hone your aim with it, there won't be a need to "retreat and attack again" because there will no longer be a squid there ;)

It's sort of a melee weapon but needs good aim. I think that turns a lot of people off it. People think the point of a roller is that you don't have to aim it (which was true more or less in the beginning) but since the patches it's actually a precision aim weapon for it's best attack (but with lots of secondary attack opportunites with the sidesplash.) But it's an ohko aimed weapon that fires much faster than any other (chargers/blasters.)

The funniest moments happen when you're rolling along and someone was camping in the ink and you just kind of bounce back like you hit a wall. Usually both players just stand there for a second trying to process what just happened. :D

When I used the carbon today I splatted someone by flinging and then bounced back and got rolled over..I just stood at the spawn point and questioned my whole life..it was so stupidly hilarious xD And I`ve started to practice using the carbon. Hope I could use it in ranked someday!

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

The funniest moments happen when you're rolling along and someone was camping in the ink and you just kind of bounce back like you hit a wall. Usually both players just stand there for a second trying to process what just happened. :D

I've definitely gotten that a few times, on both sides.

pre patch, a lot of people did use e-liters but most of them sucked. they only got burst bomb kills.

Huh. I guess that was before I started playing. Did E-liters actually get buffed somewhere along the line, or did people simply start getting better with them?

 

[Pteropine]

based on the fact I had two rollers on my team and one roller on the other team today during ranked... I'll say no it's about the same amount maybe slightly less because of more diverse weapons like sloshers and ink brushes and a such!

 

[Hawk Seow]

Other than the very dishonorable "hid in a tiny ink spot and wait for someone to pass" camping, there's a few ways to attack with carbon. Burst bombs if you don't care about stealth and want to hit from range. 2 direct hits kill, so if you can be accurate, 3-5 from area damage depending on lag :p

I disagree with it being dishonorable. It's a legitimate tactic (yes still annoying as hell) and a good stealthy Roller (doesn't even have to be Carbon) makes the enemies who have been ambushed nervous to just move around the battlefield where enemy ink exists, which forces them to wait for echolocator, point sensors or just be more meticulous with their turfing.

Imagine if someone said chargers are being dishonorable by peeking out of corners or hiding their lasers. :p

Edit: Actually, thinking about it a bit, I think whether or not we agree on that strategy being dishonorable or not isn't the main issue. The fact is, this strategy exists so it's better to find a way to deal with it. We can feel free to curse and swear at it but that alone won't make us overcome it.

 

[Award]

uh. I guess that was before I started playing. Did E-liters actually get buffed somewhere along the line, or did people simply start getting better with them?

Heck no, they got nerfed big time. Damage dealt on less than a full charge was reduced. Before the nerf you could ohko on a half charge. It led to too many max dmg up flick snipers that could just point and shoot and splat. The nerf hammer was a little overzealous in some ways, requiring a little too long a charge and leading to our current state where you MUST run several dmg ups just to make a partial charge worthwhile. Eliters "improved" because the skill floor was raised so high the ones who weren't good at it just quit, so only the good snipers remained. Which is why generally you don't see a bad eliter in ranked, the only people willing to take them are the ones who know they're at least passably decent with them already. You'll see bad eliters in TW all the time though because, where else does one practice to get passably decent? :)

I disagree with it being dishonorable. It's a legitimate tactic (yes still annoying as hell) and a good stealthy Roller (doesn't even have to be Carbon) makes the enemies who have been ambushed nervous to just move around the battlefield where enemy ink exists, which forces them to wait for echolocator, point sensors or just be more meticulous with their turfing.


Imagine if someone said chargers are being dishonorable by peeking out of corners or hiding their lasers. :p

I'm not sure if you read all the prior posts or not, but we were talking about the camping rollers earlier as a specific tactic we've seen with carbon. I don't mean being stealthy and lurking for a few seconds to catch an approaching enemy off guard, or just ambushing around the corner. I'm talking about the specific playstyle that's the cousin of spawncamping where they will create or find a stray dot of ink deep within the enemy base, walk on foot through enemy ink to not disrupt anything, and hide in that spot, as long as it takes, 40 seconds or more to get that splat. Then they will move around to different positions deep within the enemy base effectively spawncamping,, only a little away from the spawn itself - setting up a spawncamp. It's not a matter of making them afraid to advance into enemy ink on the battlefield, it's a matter of making them afraid/unable to leave their spawn area. It's really a more evil, stealthy variant of the jerk that sits in front of your spawn with an nzap with that fugly football helmet on.

Technically I believe it's an exploit that was unintentional by the devs. To hide in ink, the ink blotch should need to be the size of a squid. But they took a shortcut to make ledges work where ANY amount of ink can be hidden in. This leaves a situation where stray dots MUCH smaller than a squid form can somehow house a whole squid. So blotches you'd otherwise ignore because no squid can fit in there can actually fit a squid. The result is highly broken game mechanics where the little inkers that need to cover every single corner are technically not wrong.

But the kind of jerk who does that is indeed a spawncamper by another name. I have no objections to it if they were doing this in mid and their own base, or near the front lines. But they set up at the exits from your spawn. If every player in splatoon did this we'd have to call it Waitoon.

Or to put a sports analogy in, it's as valid a tactic as "traveling" in basketball. The spirit of the game is to keep the ball unfettered and in constant motion as it moves to allow opportunities to sieze it. Early on people figured out that if they just grabbed the ball and ran with it, they could get to he goal invincibly. Thus, the action was banned in the rules as it broke the spirit/mechanics of the game. In S2, I hope they fix it so you do need a squid-sized ink patch to hide a squid rather than every drop of ink being a Bag of Holding (D&D reference.)

 

[Hawk Seow]

Heck no, they got nerfed big time. Damage dealt on less than a full charge was reduced. Before the nerf you could ohko on a half charge. It led to too many max dmg up flick snipers that could just point and shoot and splat. The nerf hammer was a little overzealous in some ways, requiring a little too long a charge and leading to our current state where you MUST run several dmg ups just to make a partial charge worthwhile. Eliters "improved" because the skill floor was raised so high the ones who weren't good at it just quit, so only the good snipers remained. Which is why generally you don't see a bad eliter in ranked, the only people willing to take them are the ones who know they're at least passably decent with them already. You'll see bad eliters in TW all the time though because, where else does one practice to get passably decent? :)

I've been learning the charger class lately (E-Liter at the moment :D) and I'll just say that being able to OHKO on an E-Liter half charge is definitely not a good idea. I'll talk more about this in our Custom Hydra discussion :D

I'm not sure if you read all the prior posts or not, but we were talking about the camping rollers earlier as a specific tactic we've seen with carbon. I don't mean being stealthy and lurking for a few seconds to catch an approaching enemy off guard, or just ambushing around the corner. I'm talking about the specific playstyle that's the cousin of spawncamping where they will create or find a stray dot of ink deep within the enemy base, walk on foot through enemy ink to not disrupt anything, and hide in that spot, as long as it takes, 40 seconds or more to get that splat. Then they will move around to different positions deep within the enemy base effectively spawncamping,, only a little away from the spawn itself - setting up a spawncamp. It's not a matter of making them afraid to advance into enemy ink on the battlefield, it's a matter of making them afraid/unable to leave their spawn area. It's really a more evil, stealthy variant of the jerk that sits in front of your spawn with an nzap with that fugly football helmet on.

Technically I believe it's an exploit that was unintentional by the devs. To hide in ink, the ink blotch should need to be the size of a squid. But they took a shortcut to make ledges work where ANY amount of ink can be hidden in. This leaves a situation where stray dots MUCH smaller than a squid form can somehow house a whole squid. So blotches you'd otherwise ignore because no squid can fit in there can actually fit a squid. The result is highly broken game mechanics where the little inkers that need to cover every single corner are technically not wrong.

But the kind of jerk who does that is indeed a spawncamper by another name. I have no objections to it if they were doing this in mid and their own base, or near the front lines. But they set up at the exits from your spawn. If every player in splatoon did this we'd have to call it Waitoon.

Or to put a sports analogy in, it's as valid a tactic as "traveling" in basketball. The spirit of the game is to keep the ball unfettered and in constant motion as it moves to allow opportunities to sieze it. Early on people figured out that if they just grabbed the ball and ran with it, they could get to he goal invincibly. Thus, the action was banned in the rules as it broke the spirit/mechanics of the game. In S2, I hope they fix it so you do need a squid-sized ink patch to hide a squid rather than every drop of ink being a Bag of Holding (D&D reference.)

I did skim through most of the posts, just that everything said is mostly just confirming what I said on page 1 so I saw no need to discuss it much more. I still think it's a legitimate tactic and I know what you mean about the small space. Yes it might indeed be an oversight on the developer's part but that's just us assuming things.

What's more important is knowing this tactic exists so that you can prepare for it.

Whilst I do understand your basketball analogy, I'm not very familiar with the rules there so I'm not going to comment much on that. Instead, I have a few (rhetorical) questions and points:

1. Why are there a few stray puddles of ink in your territory? The ones that they can hide in ought to be turfed by anyone with a good inking weapon but usually they're too busy rushing out. Yes I know it can't be helped, there's no command to tell your team mates to "Please turf properly" :(
2. If someone got ambushed on the way out, I'd assume the next time they respawn, they'd take precautions to ink those enemy splotches in advance so as to not get ambushed as well as not let their team mates get ambushed, you need to remember if the ninja is lying in wait there for 40 seconds like you said, that's 40 seconds of not turfing for his team, it's also detrimental for his team.
3. Why aren't your team mates super jumping out? If everyone is trapped in the base and getting ambushed on the way out, it means no one is paying attention.
4. Why are you getting spawncamped? As irritating as spawncamping is (I dislike being spawncamped too, what a hopeless feeling it is at times), it is a legitimate strategy that occurs because my entire team is either ill-equiped to deal with the other team (a team full of Krak-Ons vs a team of 0.96 decos for example) or my team mates are simply not used to dealing with the situation: they're just all running off on their own panicking and getting killed without thinking.
5. Why doesn't anyone wear the Recon ability? You can see where everyone is on the map at your spawn point.

Edit: In almost any game, there will exist strategies that work better than others. When a strategy cannot be properly or reliably countered, then it may be considered an exploit and the rules probably need changing so that the balance isn't skewed badly because the least interesting kind of competition is the kind where one method dominates over every other.